Horticultural Gardening Tips/Flowers

Flowering plants (Add your tips NOW! by clicking 'Edit this page'. No registration/login required.)

Echiums

Transplanting: Difficult. Only possible when young. Try to transplant with accompanying soil as a block/cube around roots. Plant will sag and look dead after 2 hours, but will often recover. Water transplanted seedling regularly. Shade from all sun for at least 3 weeks. Once plant appears to be growing and standing upright, take away shading. Don't spray growing tips - rots very easily. Feeding has very little effect. Protect from all frost using fleece but ensure cover is off when temperature rises - otherwise growing tip rots. Caterpillars (green variety) very destructive. A single caterpillar can destroy a plant in a day.

Rugosa roses

Never never spray with any chemicals even if covered in bugs. Let plant fight the bugs itself. Even organic sprays cause leaves to go brown and shrivel. Do not foliar feed either. Damaged plants do slowly recover. Don't prune unless at least 7 years old. Don't chop off finished flowers (chopping off rugosa flowers does not apparently encourage more flowering). Add Mycorrhizal fungi when planting.